In the interior fittings of the church, no expense has been spared, and what it lacks in beauty as regards sculpture and painting it possesses in its marble walls and its carved woodwork. The pulpit is an excellent piece of modern wood-carving; the details of the ornament are in the best style; and so are most of the worshippers; for it is one of the fashionable churches of Paris. There, especially at the lazy mass (as the old writer has it, "la messe des paresseux," which was said at "la plus haute heure du matin," at "unze heures,") you see "_des mondaines_" by the dozen; only the lazy eleven o'clock has become one in the afternoon. What in the world would the old chronicler have said to the swarms of fashionables who just save their souls by hurrying off after a comfortable _déjeuner_ to those one o'clock masses? But there is a mixture at the Madeleine; old ladies of the _noblesse_; _nouveaux riches_; a few soldiers who like the music; half-a-dozen husbands who go as a duty to their wives; an old Bretonne gorgeous in chains and muslin, and velvet bodice; and two or three black women, charming in the yellow silk handkerchiefs which swathe their heads. It is a mixture, and what brings them? Probably the music, for at no church in Paris, and few elsewhere, do you hear such refined, soft, emotional strains as there. Sometimes the boys' voices are not of the best; but the artistic taste with which they sing is always there. S. Roch has a reputation for its choir, gained many years ago by its execution of the masses of Mozart and Haydn; but it no longer deserves it. S. Eustache also is celebrated for its music. But there is a special tone about that of the Madeleine one meets with nowhere else; it aims at raising one's soul from the earth upon which it is supposed to grovel; it certainly never interrupts prayer or disturbs thought. Even on Good Friday, when the old _Passione_ by Haydn, or the new one by Dubois, is performed, refinement, not clatter, is the distinguishing characteristic. If only some of our London organists would take a leaf out of the Madeleine music-book! Just think of the noise at a certain West-end church, which is the model of all that ritual should be. From its foundation, what we all loved was the refinement of its music; it was the exponent of Gregorian chants and Plain song. Now the most elaborate compositions are performed for the edification and vanity of the choir. Church music ought certainly to be an aid to prayer, not a disturbing force; but what else can it be, when organ and choir are all shrieking Haydn's Imperial Mass, or Beethoven in C, and each man or boy is trying to get the mastery? It is a bitter duel between organ and voices. All the great masters' masses are sung at the Madeleine; but you can devote yourself to your own prayers all through them without being disturbed, if you so wish. Moreover, one hour suffices in Paris for what in London endures an hour and a half, or more.